Seattle City Council 3/7/23

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Today is Tuesday, March 7th.

Welcome to our Seattle City Council meeting.

I am now calling it to order.

The time is 2.01.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Council Member Herbold?

Council Member Herbold?

Welcome back.

Council Member Lewis?

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Musqueda.

Present.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Present.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

And Council President Juarez.

I am here.

Nayen, present.

Thank you very much.

Moving on to our agenda, we have no presentations today.

And before we move on to public comment, I want to thank Council Member Strauss for stepping up and serving as council president pro tem in my absence and all of you that step up when I'm out sick.

So thank you all very much for pitching in and helping me and helping the staff so we can move forward on our city council meetings.

So thank you, Council Member Strauss.

So we will move into public comment.

Madam Clerk, I understand that we have one remote speaker and two folks in chambers.

Actually, we now have four public commenters in public in person and one remote.

OK, so why don't we just do the remote first then?

And I'm going to switch it back.

So we'll do the one person that's remote and then we'll do the four folks in chambers and each person will have two minutes, Madam Clerk.

Hello, Seattle.

We are the Emerald City, the City of Flowers and the City of Goodwill, built on indigenous land, the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples.

The Seattle City Council welcomes remote public comment and is eager to hear from residents of our city.

If you would like to be a speaker and provide a verbal public comment, you may register two hours prior to the meeting via the Seattle City Council website.

Here's some information about the public comment proceedings.

Speakers are called upon in the order in which they registered on the council's website.

Each speaker must call in from the phone number provided when they registered online and used the meeting ID and passcode that was emailed upon confirmation.

If you did not receive an email confirmation, please check your spam or junk mail folders.

A reminder, the speaker meeting ID is different from the general listen line meeting ID provided on the agenda.

Once a speaker's name is called, the speaker's microphone will be unmuted and an automatic prompt will say, the host would like you to unmute your microphone.

That is your cue that it's your turn to speak.

At that time, you must press star six.

You will then hear a prompt of, you are unmuted.

Be sure your phone is unmuted on your end so that you will be heard.

As a speaker, you should begin by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

A chime will sound when 10 seconds are left in your allotted time as a gentle reminder to wrap up your public comments.

At the end of the allotted time, your microphone will be muted and the next speaker registered will be called.

Once speakers have completed providing public comment, please disconnect from the public comment line and join us by following the meeting via Seattle Channel broadcast or through the listening line option listed on the agenda.

The council reserves the right to eliminate public comment if the system is being abused or if the process impedes the council's ability to conduct its business on behalf of residents of the city.

Any offensive language that is disruptive to these proceedings or that is not focused on an appropriate topic as specified in Council rules may lead to the speaker being muted by the presiding officer.

Our hope is to provide an opportunity for productive discussions that will assist our orderly consideration of issues before the Council.

The public comment period is now open.

and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Please remember to press star six after you hear the prompt of, you have been unmuted.

Thank you, Seattle.

Our first remote speaker is Howard Gale.

Good afternoon.

Howard Gale with Seattle Stop.org.

This council has allowed well over $100 million to be spent over the last decade on a police accountability system that has itself escaped any accountability.

When any person or agency avoids accountability, the results are predictable.

Three weeks ago, the Community Police Commission, whose central role is to uplift the voices of those harmed by police, instead attacked Castile Hightower, whose brother, Herbert Hightower Jr., was murdered by the SPD in 2004. The CPC, whose central mission is to give voice to those impacted by police violence, has fired staff and shut down its own commissioners who try to uphold this mission.

Not one single commissioner has been directly impacted by Seattle police violence.

Just last week, the CPC held a meeting to hear from youth, which exactly two youth attended.

In May, it will be six full years that the CPC has failed to fulfill the legislative requirements mandated by this very council in Resolution 31753 Most notably, the CPC has failed to investigate mechanisms external to the SPD for investigating serious and deadly use of force and has failed to investigate and propose a complainant appeals process.

The CPC has completely failed to hold legally mandated annual community meetings to gather input from the community and has failed to provide legally mandated district representation.

This council has failed to abide by the strong recommendations of the city auditor five and a half years ago to have a full independent audit of our accountability system with certain council members actually rejecting an attempt in 2021 to even initiate such a process.

What all this means is that tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money is spent on a system which now commits actual harm against those who have already been harmed by the SPD and escapes any accountability.

A variety of city commissions are now joining together with the Seattle Human Rights Commission to provide some form of oversight that this council appears either unwilling or terrified of providing.

Thank you.

Our first in-person speaker is Carolyn Malone.

I'm Carolyn Malone, and I continue to protest on the streets, Seattle police harassment because I have a right to protest their presence in my building.

This article appeared in the Real Change newsletter.

I would strongly suggest that City Council read it.

It's about community members' concern about police illegal use of technology, surveillance to violate innocent people, via their cell phone.

My cell phone is hacked into so severely and extremely by police, it's almost not usable.

Adult protective services have tried to reach me.

HUD has tried to reach me, and many agencies I've reached out to, to get intervention.

And all police do is intercept my calls, delete my calls.

I'm in the process of working with the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection about bedbugs, an infestation of bedbugs is in my apartment, and they are slow, and not sure about coming out.

Each day I protest, I'm locked out of my apartment.

The far block flashes red or not at all.

So I go out and protest some more.

So Seattle police are in violation of the consent decree.

And I will continue to protest until they stop.

A black male was out today jammed my camera.

I take photos of people suspiciously around me, those who try to pick fights with me while I'm at Fifth and Cherry, and my camera suddenly jammed.

Seattle police have the strongest technology to do.

Thank you.

The next in-person speaker is Alex Zimmerman.

My dirty, damn fascist, animal from animal farm.

My name Alex Zimmerman, yeah.

I'm staying here with my red sign and my yellow David star, you know what it mean?

And nobody show my face.

Probably people remember me.

I'm named Alex Zimmerman.

Yeah, absolutely, don't forget.

So right now I want to speak about something that is making me totally sick, because most consul here, all nine approximately, is a mentally sick people in pure fascist.

You appoint somebody for immigrant or refugee commissioner, I try to understand who you appoint, is this all slave?

Yeah, why they don't come here?

They don't ask why you don't show us faces.

From May, it's almost 11 months right now.

Yeah, or 10. What's going on?

No, I never see like this before.

And I go and speak every day all over, you know, it has been too many council meetings.

Everybody show my face.

Why you don't show my face?

You don't like me because I am a Jew, because I'm a refugee, or because you mentally sick freaking idiot.

Why is going on?

10, 11 months you don't show people faces.

Who did this?

Who can doing this?

only psychopath, mentally sick psychopath.

For this, you can go to my website, alexforamerica.com.

You see, Seattle is a fascism, half-fascist with idiotic face.

I print this 15 years ago, and for 15 years, nothing changed.

And 750,000 slept.

So poor these nine freaking cretins.

Stand up, Seattle.

Stand up, America.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Marguerite Richard.

Yes, my name is Marguerite Richard and I'm really concerned about this being Women's History Month and the things that are happening, the degradation.

I put down the fact of refugees and immigrants because we have a commission.

and I'm from the indigenous black population, very much concerned about how we're treated here as if the things that we're saying are very minute.

You don't show our faces as a rule and I don't know what a pandemic that big of a scare would wipe our faces off.

off of a screen that we're used to looking at and seeing ourselves as people that come down here for a reason, not for our health, because it's taken a whole lot of us out based upon that.

You say, get to the point.

Well, I am the point.

I am the point.

I was the point when I started out and I'll be the point when I end up.

You're going to take your your longstanding hate out of this room, your longstanding discriminatory hate out of this room.

All of the stuff that Ms. Malone was complaining about, hey, that hell on earth is real.

And when you get to be the skin color that I am and the age that I have been allowed by the grace of God, here I am, that's the only reason why I'm still standing.

Because it ain't because I said something to you.

Because me and Honorable Michael B. Fuller was just sitting down there.

I showed my niece, I said, you see how they sitting right there, just as pleasant mind in their own business?

No foreigner guard came up to them and told them, get up, you can't sit there no more, but they said it to us, and you ain't gonna do nothing about it, Ms. Herbold, before you leave here.

I see you smiling.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Ashani Smith.

Hello, my name is actually Asia Smith.

Nice to see your guys' faces again.

I'm very concerned.

Like my aunt said about you guys showing your faces, yet you guys don't show our faces because our faces matter as well.

Because you know, we're all coming together speaking about the city of Seattle, the city we love so much.

Also, I have a concern with how you guys perceive the black community, especially people who have been here and who have been raised generations upon generations of being here.

We don't have a lot of resources and things for us to feel like we have an outlet to, and I feel like that's a problem.

And a lot of people in my community do sell drugs in our city of Seattle, or they partake and participate in things that I feel that are wrong, but the only reason why they do those things is because they were put into a system where they only had that choice to do so.

All I'm asking is for you guys to start creating programs and start creating funding and start creating things so we can start uplifting our communities.

And I'm not saying that I don't care about any other communities.

And I'm not saying that I don't care about immigrants because I care about all people.

But I feel like we need to go to the source of the problem before we go to the big source of the problem.

Because if you don't go to the root rot, all the roots get rotten too.

Yeah, that's all I have to say.

I hope you guys have a good day.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's it, Council President.

Thank you and thank you folks for showing up and providing public comment for Seattle City Council today.

So with that, public comment has now ended and we will move on to our agenda.

If there's no objection, the introduction and referral calendar will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the introduction and referral calendar is indeed adopted.

Moving on to adoption of the agenda, there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Not seeing or hearing an objection, the agenda is adopted.

Moving on to adoption of the consent calendar items on the consent calendar include the minutes of February 28 2023. Payroll bill Council bill 120519 and we have 12 appointments recommended by the neighborhoods education civil rights.

and Cultural Committee, and that would be Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

The 12 appointments are four appointments to the Seattle Immigrant and Refugee Commission, one to the Seattle Youth Commission, six appointments to the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority, and one to the Historic Seattle Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council.

Those are all 12. Are there any council members that would like to have any of these items removed from the consent calendar?

All right, not seeing or hearing none, I move to adopt the consent calendar.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Thank you.

The consent calendar has been moved and it's been seconded.

So I am now moving to adopt the consent calendar.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the consent calendar?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

And Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The consent calendar is adopted.

Looks like we have a short calendar here today, folks, on the committee reports.

We have one and I believe this item is mine.

Madam Clerk, will you please read item one into the record?

Agenda Item 1, Council Bill 120517, relating to city employment, commonly referred to as the first quarter 2023 employment ordinance, returning positions to the civil service system, exempting positions from the civil service system, and establishing new titles and corresponding rates of pay, all by a two-thirds vote of the city council.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

I move to pass Council Bill 120517. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded to pass the bill.

As sponsor of this council bill, I'll address this item.

Council Bill 120517 is more commonly referred to as the First Quarter 2023 Employment Ordinance.

It was developed and proposed by the Seattle Department of Human Resources and has been reviewed by Karina Bull at Central Staff.

If enacted, Council Bill 120517 would do the following.

First, it would return three positions to the civil service system.

As a result of a classification review and determination by the Seattle Human Resources Department, the positions no longer meet the exemption criteria.

These are positions located in the Finance and Administrative Services, also known as FAS, department in the Seattle Department of Human Resources.

Exempt one one position at Seattle City Light from the Seattle.

Let me say that again.

We're going to exempt one position at Seattle City Light from the civil service system as a result of a classification review and determination.

The position meets exemptions defined by the municipal code by virtue of its title.

Second, we will establish one new title with corresponding rates of pay for the veterinary assistant within the finance and administrative services department.

Karina Bull and central staff reviewed this proposal and prepared a memo, which was attached to the agenda, which you should all have seen is also posted online.

Thank you, Karina Bull and central staff for doing this for us.

With that said, are there any comments?

All right, not seeing any comments from my colleagues.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Council Member Solant?

Yes.

And Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, nine opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes, the chair will sign it and manual clerk, please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Moving on to our agenda.

Is there any other business to come before council before I move on to adjourn?

OK, not seeing any colleagues, this does conclude our items of business today.

Our next regularly scheduled meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 14th.

And that is all.

Have a great afternoon.

We are adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.